'Oregonian' cuts home delivery to 3 days

Jun. 21, 2013
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Oregonian cuts back home delivery to three days / OregonLive.com

by Roger Yu, USA TODAY

by Roger Yu, USA TODAY

The Oregonian, the largest daily newspaper in the Portland, Ore., metro area, said Thursday it will cut an unspecified number of jobs and reduce home delivery to three days a week this fall.

The Oregonian still will be published daily and sold at outlets in Portland and other parts of the state, according to the paper's website, OregonLive.com. But starting Oct. 1, home delivery just will be Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

The papers that will be published for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday will be slimmed down. The Saturday paper will be delivered to subscribers "as a bonus," the company said.

The company didn't reveal new subscription or single-copy pricing.

The paper's parent company, Staten Island, N.Y.-based Advance Publications, will also launch a new company, Oregonian Media Group, this fall to assume operational control of OregonLive.com, The Oregonian and its related print products.

"While we believe these changes will create growth opportunities for our employees, the reality is that some employees will lose their jobs," said N. Christian Anderson III, publisher of The Oregonian who will become president of Oregonian Media Group.

Advance will form another separate company, Advance Central Services Oregon, that will provide support services - including human resources, production, circulation and information systems - for Oregonian Media Group and other companies.

"Many" of the Oregonian's employees will be offered positions with the newly formed companies, he said.

"This strategy will allow us to serve consumers in Oregon and Southwest Washington with more up-to-the-minute, robust news and information online and on mobile devices while continuing the strong enterprise and investigative reporting that The Oregonian and OregonLive.com are so well known for," Anderson said.

It joins a small but growing number of publications that are shifting resources to digital properties, many of them owned by its parent. Advance has reduced publication or home delivery at several of its papers, including The Ann Arbor News in Michigan, The Huntsville Times, Mobile Press-Register and Birmingham News in Alabama, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, The Harrisburg Patriot-News in Pennsylvania and The Syracuse Post-Standard in New York.

Other media companies have also cut back on print operations. Gannett, parent of USA TODAY, publishes The Detroit Free Press which prints seven days a week but delivers to home subscribers only on Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

The Detroit News, owned by MediaNews Group, also home-delivers Thursday and Friday and has a page inside The Detroit Free Press on Sunday.